In recent months I have been seeing more use of pictures in blogs that have obviously not been prepared by the blogger. They are often used to pad out a weak topic, presuamble in the hope that the image will overlook the content.
This is immediately apparent to those of us who see many SAP produced presentations. For example, in the eSOA area, there are about 6 or 7 images that consistently appear!
"What's wrong with this?", I hear you ask. Well, a few things. First of all, if you're using someone's images, as a bare minimum you should say who it is from. That way the blog audience isn't fooled into thinking that you have spent many hours with a graphics tool.
Secondly, if there was attribution to a web site (eg: http://help.sap.com...), then we can follow the link and see just how much original content has been wrapped around the graphic. It's a lot easier to rephrase a few sentences that rebuild a graphic.
There's another English expression about people living in glass houses not throwing stones, so I am prepared to have some of my previous efforts brought up against me, but I have always tried to provide attribution.
I understand that the blog moderators already have a tough job, but I'd like to propose we ask them to ensure bloggers provide some form of attribution when graphics are used.
